


Answer With Questions

by birdroid



Series: Ask Solas entries for biowareask @ vk.com [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Headcanon, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-07 10:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21456592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdroid/pseuds/birdroid
Summary: A collection of drabbles for a Bioware fandom ask blog. Posting answers as Solas.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor & Solas, Sera & Solas
Series: Ask Solas entries for biowareask @ vk.com [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705687
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an intro post for a Bioware Fandom ask blog. If all goes well, the series of drabbles will be updated monthly at least.

The man's body falls flat from his knees with a chainmail clank muffled into a thud, all thanks to the borrowed brocade guise of a noble guest. Once emerald green and indigo blue, now it's soaking crimson black with blood pouring around from the wound right across the man's neck.

In master Tethras's books, this is usually when everything ends for a character. A blow, a sequence of last words, and then they are gone. Fast and clean.

Solas knows better.

The man gurgles, desperate for a breath. The man sniffs tears and snot and blood, and his mouth moves to form words, except not a soul can hear them, and then, as they always do, the man pisses his pants.

The last remaining spy, a woman in her forties dressed as a servant, fixates on the image of her dying comrade, too fazed to take her eyes off. Her face betrays no emotion--of course, Leliana made sure they are that good--and yet her breath turns into a wheeze. She knows this is how she will go, too, but does she comprehend it?

"Your friend here could have prevented this," says Solas, cleaning his blade. "I was simply trying to acquire some answers. He let his pride get the better of him, and now he is dead."

The woman's expression transforms into a faint scoff. Still with her eyes on the fellow spy's dying, with her voice coarse from keeping silence for too long, she says, "Funny you say that. The Inquisitor told the same about you, about your pride getting the better of you."

She says, "The Inquisitor wants you dead."

"I know that much. Nonetheless, I am seeking a different kind of answers."

The man's gurgles have died out. His face has gone still. The look on his face, as much as Solas can tell, is one of horror and fear and regret. The stench of his piss reaches Solas's nose, meaning by now it must have reached the woman's, too.

She stays silent.

The woman never knew immortality of elvhen, and yet her grasp of death seems to be reduced down to a speculated hypothesis.

Solas asks, "How many of the Inquisition agents are here? Who is the head of your cell, and where are they? What kind of information were you hoping to gather?"

Solas says, "Speak."

The woman finally lifts her gaze at him.

And she answers with a question.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q: Do you have a child? A ward or a student, perhaps? What do you teach them and what kind of life would you wish upon them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanons incoming! You've been warned. The answer is based off the banter dialogue between Solas and Blackwall where Solas shares not exactly the best parenting advice.

"I know what yer problem is, baldie."

Sera's voice comes out as a surprise, but only to a degree. As curious as she is by nature, Sera's rarely in the mood to question Solas--that is, unless mocking is her intent. The Adamant Fortress is too far ahead. With only mounds of sands scattered throughout the Western Approach and erecting canyon cliffs providing a temporary shelter from the toasting sun, humoring her might be the only kind of entertainment for miles around.

"Is that so?" he asks, giving in.

"I've 'eard what yeh two--the Warden and yeh, I mean--been talkin' about."

Gray Warden Blackwall tilts his head just enough to cast Solas a benign glance from behind the eye slits of his helmet. He doesn't need to take the piece of armor off to demonstrate how comfortable he is with this.

"Could you be a little more specific, perhaps?" asks Solas.

"Yeh know, the whole 'cheeld-ruhn don't learn uhn-less yoo shout at 'em' thingy."

A little needle stab into the heart. A lump in the throat, unwelcome and hurtful. Guilt. Shame. An intake of air that doesn't quite reach his suffocating lungs.

A beat goes by. Maybe, another. Then Solas lets it all go.

"C'mon, spill it," Sera continues, apparently taking no note of the subtle change in him, gone now. "How many little bald elfie sprouts d'yeh have?"

"None," he answers, honest and simple and hurting. "I don't have any children."

The answer came up quick, just in time. Truthful howbeit deceitful, it coincides with the code he follows. Don't lie, but don't tell the truth, either. Not the whole truth.

Never the whole truth.

Behind him, Sera's rambling on what she thinks of the Winter Palace. The Inquisitor joins in, opening up on how draining the whole experience was. Gray Warden Blackwall adds some surprisingly insightful notes on how The Game works.

Solas is silent, for ages ago, the answer to Sera's question was different.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q: Do you like the Inquisitor? Were they your friend, lover — or they were the enemy who you had to work with?

The gigantic mirror glows live, rippling with undulations of blue and purple and white, a puddle of oil mistakingly oozing about on a wall instead of a floor. Resonating to the magic of the Crossroads, it hums as if intoning a mournful song, long since forgotten to the whole of Thedas.

To the whole of Thedas, except for him.

The only other sound is the Inquisitor's grunts. Her arm is a fuse flaring bile-green, the flash moving up to the rest of the body with a torturing pace of infection in progress. The Inquisitor's flushed face is running with sweat, auburn locks of her hair curled stuck to the skin around her temples, damp. This is a woman in a great deal of pain, this is someone who must be feeling lost and betrayed, someone who's wearing a mark that was never intended to be borne by someone so fragile, so flammable, so flesh-made.

For one, it was never intended to be borne by someone so human.

"Is this all you have? Is this how you justify what you've done? What you're doing?" she asks in-between her grunts.

"Isn't this enough?"

The armor on her is plates of metal fit together to serve as means of protection, although all they do now is weigh her down, adding to the strain. However painful the whole ordeal is, she stands up, her knees wavering yet not failing. 

"It is not too late. You can come with me, come back to us, and no one will have to know. I will protect you, you have my word."

"After all you've learned, do you still think it's me who needs protection?"

The moment his eyes flair blue, she gasps and jolts, a barrier of Fade weaved reactively in an instant. He bides a heartbeat, then two, then three, then four until she finally notices the only thing that has changed is the burning hand. Albeit still disintegrating into green chunks of flesh, it hurts no longer.

She lifts his eyes at him, slowly.

And he couldn't suppress his smile even if he wanted to.

He sits beside her, his elvhen godlike outfit of gold and brocade and fur against the dirt, and takes her marked hand in his, the gesture so familiar to both of them. Once again, a teacher to his student, a friend to the holy, a companion to the Inquisitor.

Not a god to his pawn.

Not a traitor to a fool.

"You're living a dream," says the Inquisitor as he tends her hand. "You're living a twisted, misleading dream, and I can't wake you up."

"You're right, in a manner of speaking. I awoke into the nightmare of my own doing, but the only way out is waking up everybody else in return."

The Inquisitor's marked forearm comes apart like embers floating off an inferno of a blaze. Green clumps burning into sparkles, into glittering specks, into nothing. Her leather bracer, now empty, falls off without making a sound.

Solas says, "You gifted me with your trust and friendship, and despite all the Dalish tell about me, I don't take such a relationship for granted. In return, I give you the life you deserve, free from ancient magic, free from entanglements you fell into, free from my presence. Use it wisely, friend."

Before departing into the shimmering sheet of the eluvian, he adds, "There are wounds time cannot heal and there are wrongs that cannot be undone."

He says, "Do not leap into the nightmare of my doing."

He says, "My heart is not whole enough to break like that again."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 🐺 Q: There is the theory about Sera being Andruil. Do you feel something about it or it's just crap?  
🐺 AN: Not quite nailing the question with this one, but that's as good of an answer as I can come up with *shrugs*

Sera is fiddling with the lockwork, her brows furrowed in a concentrated expression.

"Come on," she croons under her breath as if any diplomacy with the door would help her picking the lock.

Outside, the red templars' dogs are baying out, sensing the intruders nearby. Someone's voice barking orders and numerous shuffling steps echo up the hallway, making the Inquisitor turn her head their way every other heartbeat.

"Sera, could you please hurry up?" the Inquisitor asks. "We won't hold out long."

The Inquisitor took quite a beating from what had probably been a templar soldier once but now was a jumbled mass of red crystal spikes, contorted flesh, and bumped plates of metal. The creature landed heavy blows on her before Varric's bolt finished him off, and although the Inquisitor's armor has absorbed the brunt of it, she is still anything but up to combat judging by the discoloring on her chin and eyebrow and the way she sways and leans on the wall to stand upright.

The rest, well, there was more than one red templar guarding the chateau.

"Sera!"

Two red templar patrols turn round the corner to spot them, but before either of them can raise the alarm, Sera pivots on the spot and springs two arrows, one per mouth. The soldiers fumble at their throats, spitting blood down their chestplates, then gurgle, eyeballs bulging out, then fall with a clack.

Jabbing picklocks into the keyhole again, she spits, "Maybe yall stop goofing and do something 'bout the bodies? Or you think them templars so deaf they won't come 'ere to check what's the racket about?"

"That was some shooting here," Varric comments with a whistle. "Where you say you learned to shoot like that?"

Sera puffs and rolls her eyes.

"Nowhere. Everywhere. Hunting. Sometimes, people. Now, bodies, please? Unless yall are itching for another hassle."

While dragging the bodies to a secluded place, Solas can't help asking, "Sera, did you just allude to living among the Dalish?"

"Maybe I did, so what?"

"You didn't stay with them."

"Did my clean face give me away? Or was it my open sniffing at them?"

"With a marksmanship skill such as yours, you could've been revered as Andruil in the flesh. They would've honored you with her valasslin. You would've become a great asset to her followers."

"Is this even supposed to sound any good? If so, you're not doing a very great job I'm tellin' you."

"I'm not trying to sway you. Quite on the contrary, I'm as happy with your choice as I can be. Yet many people find the prospect of being worshipped too appealing to decline. I am but curious why you didn't give in to it."

Still on the lockwork, Sera shrugs. "I just didn't. There wasn't any of big reasoning or high ideas. I'd rather have my skills to myself than to a petrified make-believe creature."

With a clamorous click, the door finally opens out, its hinges making a prolonged jarring creak. Stepping aside to let the Inquisitor in, Sera adds, "Moreover, sporting a facepaint wouldn't suit the pretty me, now would it."

No, it absolutely would not, Solas agrees silently. Little does she know, though, that sporting the face paint could turn her into the make-believe creature's host the moment the evanuris break lose.


End file.
